1. Pashcal Mystery
1.1. The paschal mystery refers to the mystery of God’s saving work in the history of the world. But what is seen as a msytery in the Catholic's eyes?
1.1.1. Paschal is the English adjectival form of the Greek word pascha, which is derived from the Hebrew word pesah (or pesach), which means “passover.”
1.1.2. As a theological concept, mystery is often misunderstood because mystery calls to mind something that is secret, irrational, or fictional.
1.1.2.1. A Mystery in theoligical terms is a religious truth that one can know only by revelation
1.1.2.1.1. By calling Christ’s saving work the Paschal Mystery it reveals that God can know a great deal about it and not humans who won't fully understand the Paschal Mystery in this earthly life
1.1.2.1.2. For example the Paschal Mystery is not secretive, irrational, or beyond a correct understanding of the mysteries of faith.
1.1.3. The belief that God saves us from the consequences of both Original Sin and our personal sins through the saving work of Jesus Christ.
1.1.3.1. God’s plan of salvation has long been at work, and though hidden and incomplete in the events of the Old Testament, it has been fully revealed and accomplished through Jesus Christ.
1.2. To accomplish our redemption, God sent God’s Son, who became incarnate in the human nature of Jesus of Nazareth— the long-expected Messiah, or Christ.
1.2.1. Through his cross, Christ establishes a new covenant between God and humankind.
1.2.1.1. It is through his passing through death to resurrection that we are freed from sin and death and born to new life.
1.3. Through Jesus’ life, teaching, and ministry, and especially in his death and resurrection, the depth of God’s love for humankind is revealed.
1.3.1. For every Christian, the meaning of human history is manifested in this act of divine self-giving.
1.4. Four events commonly used to describe it: the Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension.
1.4.1. Reveals that Christ’s Passion and death, in loving obedience to his Father’s will, were necessary to bring to fruition God’s plan of salvation,
1.5. This is the definition of Paschal Mystery in the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "Christ’s work of redemption accomplished principally by his Passion, death, Resurrection, and glorious Ascension, whereby dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life. The paschal mystery is celebrated and made present in the liturgy of the Church, and its saving effects are communicated through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which renews the paschal sacrifice of Christ as the sacrifice offered by the Church".
2. Christ as the Sacrement of God
2.1. Christ is “one person in two natures”, implies that one and the same person, the Son of God, also took on a visible human form. Even in his humanity Christ is the Son of God
2.1.1. The full human nature of Jesus can be called the Light of the World and the sacrament of God
2.1.1.1. Comprised as the total human nature of Jesus which is namely in its contingency, createdness, finiteness, relativity, temporalness, and limitedness.
2.2. The humanity of Jesus is concretely intended by God as the fulfilment of his promise of salvation; it is a messianic reality.
2.2.1. This messianic and redemptive purpose of the Incarnation implies that the encounter between Jesus and his contemporaries was always on his part an offering of grace in a human form.
2.3. A question to answer however is: Can we theologically say that Jesus is absolute? This question is key to Christology.
2.3.1. What evidence is there to prove he is the son of god and thus a sacarament of god?
2.3.2. Christ as God must be seen as absolute in his divinty but as human is seen as contingent and relative in the same way that every other human being is.
2.4. Christ is God in a human way, and man in a divine way. As a man he acts out his divine life in and according to his human existence.
2.4.1. Why can Jesus only be considered as a sacrament in and through his human nature?
2.4.1.1. In all sacramental discussion, there is the sacrament, and there is the reality to which the sacrament refers which can be asked on why Jesus is a sacrament as human form rather than his divine form.
3. The Sacramental Principle
3.1. The sacramental principle states that created things are good and are signs of God’s presence and grace.
3.2. The principle is distinctly Catholic and is the basis for all that Catholics do.
3.2.1. How do we know that the Principle is distinctly catholic
3.2.1.1. The Incarnation is the reason for this. It helped people make sense of the seven sacraments, made them reasonable and true within creation itself and formed the belief of the principle being distinctly Catholic.
3.3. “A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.”
3.3.1. The basic assumption of a sacrament and the principle is that the creation itself is good. It was created that way by God in use of a way to communicate with people.
3.4. An example is Food which can be part of the sacramental principle.
3.4.1. It is believed that God feeds us with food, the good things of the earth as well as feeding those with his word.
3.4.1.1. Catholic's understand how God feeds us spiritually because of how He feeds us physically. Our souls need nourishment just as our body does.
3.5. Catholic tradition gathers up this conviction that our covenant is realized through the ordinary of life in the principle of sacramentality.
3.5.1. Nothing is more significant to what makes people Catholic than the sacramental principle. It epitomizes a Catholic outlook on life in the world.
3.5.1.1. If Asked, catholics would say that the one word to describe their beliefs within catholicism would be sacramental
4. A mindmap on Sacraments by Ben McCarthy- S00249782
5. Rituals
5.1. A Contemporary Question
5.1.1. Eucharist
5.1.1.1. The Eucharist is a Christian service, ceremony, or sacrament commemorating the Last Supper, in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed.
5.1.1.1.1. A contemporary question is the confusion that people have about Transubstantaition that takes place when the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ. How does this happen?
5.2. Christians belief is in the resurrection of Jesus and his continued presence in the community of Christians. This gives meaning to their ritual activity through what Christians term grace.
5.2.1. There are five elements present in all Christian rituals: hermeneutic of experience, maturation, presence, service, and friendship.
5.3. Rituals perform many important functions. They facilitate everyday human interaction as well as symbolize and celebrate the most important values of individuals, communities, and nations.
5.3.1. Christians have their own language for the rituals they use including the word “sacrament” which is actually the Christian term for their most important rituals.
5.4. 7 SACREMENTS Baptism Confirmation Eucharist Reconciliation Marriage Holy Orders Anointing of the Sick
5.4.1. These sacraments all represent rituals in which people of christianity participate in accross their lifetime as part of their belief in Christ and God
6. Symbols
6.1. Symbols make present abstract realities; they bring into our conscious minds the realities they represent
6.1.1. Symbols are evocative; they affect us in some way
6.1.2. Symbols can be shared
6.1.3. Symbols are a means of communication; they also communicate experiences to us
6.1.3.1. We as humans exist symbolically: we are aware of ourselves and our surroundings, and we are able to bring into our own consciousness things that exist outside of ourselves.
7. Symbols and rituals actually construct the human world, and it is only through symbols that we perceive both the world and ourselves.
8. Church as the Sacrament of Christ
8.1. The outward symbol of a sacrament, namely its physical character. It's certainly never identical with the mysterious reality of grace and divine life which it contains.
8.1.1. Consequently, all the visible and physical characteristics which make the Church the body of Christ are not identical with the God–man Jesus Christ as he now is in his transfigured life in the reality of God the Father.
8.1.1.1. Whatever is physical about the Church is only a sign, symbol, or sacrament for the presence of Christ in an extended visible form, as it were.
8.1.2. It may also be said of the Church and its symbolic relation to Christ himself and his unique character as the primal sacrament
8.1.2.1. How do we know that Christ was and is the real ‘sacrament of God'?
8.1.2.1.1. Because god is the sacrament of the final ground and origin of all holiness, salvation, and grace.
8.1.3. It is merely the symbol of the reality of the grace or divine life with which it is filled.
8.2. Catholic faith shows the Church as a ‘sacrament’. More precisely the ‘general sacrament’and the ‘all-embracing sacrament’,
8.3. The word ‘sacrament’ does not mean the same thing in the church as it does when applied to Christ and the individual sacraments.
8.3.1. Church as sacrament stands in a certain intermediate position between Christ and the individual sacraments.
8.3.1.1. However, a sacrament is bound to be united with the ‘primal sacrament’ that is Christ
8.4. Theologians admire and praise Christ's connection with the Church often in almost effusive terms.
8.4.1. It is believed that the unity between Christ and the Church is bound together by unbreakable bonds
8.4.1.1. Holy Scripture teaches that the body of Christ, whose soul is the Son of God, is the entire Church of God
8.4.1.2. It is said that 'The Church is in Christ and Christ is in the Church'
8.4.1.3. Christ's death is the origin of the Church: ‘Christ died so that the Church could come into being
8.4.1.3.1. After his death Christ's side was pierced with a spear so that the sacraments could flow forth by which the Church would be formed.
9. Sacramental Theology In The Second Vatican Council
9.1. The first and most basic ecclesiological principle that the Vatican Council belived was that the Church was a mystery and a sacrament.
9.1.1. To say that the Church is a mystery, or sacrament, means, in the words of the late Pope Paul VI, that it is “a reality imbued with the hidden presence of God.”
9.1.1.1. How is The Vatican Council in the Church seen as a religious organization to which people belonged to and that the Church was and still is the corporate presence of God in Christ?
9.2. The Second Vatican Council consciously took up the description of the Church as ‘sacrament’ from tradition and gave it a special emphasis.
9.2.1. It is known as the 21st ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church and was announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959.
9.2.1.1. It was as a means of spiritual renewal for the church and as an occasion for Christians separated from Rome to join in a search for Christian unity.
9.3. There are four constitutions: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Sacred Liturgy), Lumen gentium (The Church), Dei verbum (Divine Revelation) and Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution)
9.4. Second Vatican Council, uses a title that indicates the deep relationship between Jesus and Church.
9.4.1. In this title, it states, that the Church is not the light of the world; only Jesus is the Light of the World.